PHILIPSBURG--The High Court in The Hague this week rejected all but one appeal filed in the so-called Standard Trust case. Only the case of Standard Trust Company (STC) NV director co-director Jodi Lynn Garner (42) was referred back to the Joint Court of Justice in St. Maarten for retrial.

 

In November 2012, STC and its directors Allard Stamm, Corinne De Tullio-Stamm and Garner were acquitted by the Appeals Court of money laundering, but found guilty of violation of the Ordinance on Unusual Transactions.

 

For this crime, committed between June 1, 2006, and July 21, 2006, each defendant was sentenced to suspended NAf. 10,000 fines, with two years' probation. STC was also convicted of a conditional fine to the same amount.

 

The Court of First Instance had found money laundering and violation of the Ordinance on Unusual Transactions proven, in December 2010. It had sentenced STC to pay a NAf. 90,000 fine, while the directors all received one year suspended, with three years' probation and NAf. 10,000 fines.

 

The Prosecutor's Office as well as the defendants had filed for appeal with the High Court, but the highest court in the kingdom on Tuesday rejected the appeals as the required documents had been filed too late. Only in Garner's case did the High Court consider a retrial warranted. In the retrial, the Appeals Court will have to make a new decision on whether Garner has been guilty of violation of the Ordinance on Unusual Transactions.

 

Since 2003, every company and individual offering financial services has been obligated to report so-called unusual transactions of US $10,000 and more to Unusual Transactions Reporting Centre MOT. STC failed to do so, but the company's directors stated MOT was to blame. They claimed MOT had failed to inform trust companies properly of the requirements and necessary procedures.

 

Garner said she had always done her job with integrity and to the best of her abilities. "I was not familiar with the MOT-regulations. It was all in Dutch...I did not know the limitation of US $10,000 in cash," she said during the November 8, 2012, hearing.

 

Her lawyer C.W. Noorduyn told the High Court during the March 10 hearing of the appeal that whereas Garner was responsible for STC's accounting, the other two directors maintained contact with clients and were doing the actual trust work.

 

Garner had stated she had only become company director to enable her to sign documents when her co-directors were not in the office. She was only a director "on paper," as the other two directors were, in fact, in charge.

 

The Prosecutor's Office held all suspects accountable and punishable, during the 2012 appeal hearing. Solicitor-General Taco Stein had requested the Appeals Court to sentence STC to pay a NAf. 90,000 fine, and to sentence each of its three directors to nine months suspended, with two years' probation and NAf. 10,000 fines.

 

The criminal case against the trust company derived from the case against former police commissioner Marcel Loor and his partner in life Charlene Craig. Loor was irrevocably convicted by the High Court in The Hague on October 9, 2012 of money laundering, and sentenced to 23 months, six of which were suspended, on three years' probation.

 

The Court based this, among other evidence, on 14 cash deposits of between US $3,500 and $18,000 by STC at Nevis-based offshore company Santana Real Estate Ltd, of which Loor was the sole shareholder, made between June 8 and 29, 2006.

 

According to the High Court, it could be ascertained that at least part of the money had been kept out of reach of the tax office, which constituted the crime of tax evasion.

 

The STC directors denied they had had any knowledge about Loor's criminal activities at the time. All three told the Appeals Court in 2012 that they had not questioned the legality of Loor's cash transactions.

 

The Joint Court found that STC and her directors had failed to report unusual transactions to MOT, which it considered an important instrument in the battle against money-laundering.

 

The violations, and the fact that all suspects were first offenders, led the Court to only impose conditional fines. The Central Bank revoked the trust company's permit in December 2010. STC is currently only offering administrative services.

 

The Daily Herald

 

Mr. C.W. Noorduyn is an attorney at law at the law firm Sjöcrona Van Stigt Attorneys at Law in The Hague.